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Automatically Appended Next Post: Feeding Frenzy. One CP, target unit must be wholly within 12" of a hero or 18" of the general (which they will be anyways), spend it after the unit has fought for the first time in the combat phase and it immediately fights again. Not only is this an overpowered command ability for anyone it is especially so for FEC; they rarely need the CP elsewhere (in theory they need it for summons, in reality they do not). They also have some seriously powerhouse combat units, making this ability stronger still.
Delusion/Subfaction Imbalance: FEC theoretically have six delusions they can pick from, I do not even remember what the other ones are because they are so massively and utterly worse than Feast Day they may as well not exist. Feast Day gives you a free feeding frenzy (see above) every turn. Instead of a delusion they can pick one of four Grand Courts, of which two are grossly OP enough to be on par with Feast Day; Blisterskin and Gristlegore. Gristlegore stands out for the general (which will always be a mounted terrorgheist) being able to attack at the start of the combat phase all the time (note he can then feeding frenzy to be attacking twice at the start), while Blisterskin stands out for getting a free CP on a 4+ every turn and an artifact that makes units wholly within 12" be -1 to hit with shooting (strong shooting being the main weakness of FEC, this is potent in a tourney setting against triple-ballista stormcast). They each have several additional benefits as well, but you get the idea.
Trait Imbalance: FEC theoretically have twelve mount traits to chose from; 6 for a mounted terry and 6 for a mounted dragon. Again, from an effectiveness perspective all but one of those may as well not exist because one of the terry traits is so much stronger (re-roll failed hits on maw attacks).
Mounted terrorgheist. Incredibly undercosted unit. Fast, durable, heals automatically, a wizard with one of the strongest warscroll spells in the game, hits like a truck, and summons a 170 point unit (though this summon actually requires a CP as mounted kings do not benefit from the throne terrain piece). Main feature is it has 3 maw attacks that on a hit roll of 6 deal 6 mortal wounds (not d6, 6). Refer back to the mount trait that allows re-rolling said hits. Bonus cheese is that the archregent's warscroll spell gives it d3 extra attacks, and it can do that feeding frenzy bit to go twice. I have seen this guy wipe out a 10-man blightking unit in one combat phase.
Other undercosted units. Archregent has been mentioned, though I will add that he is still a bit undercosted even without any summoning ability at all. Flayers are undercosted just showing up, horrors are reasonably priced, neither properly account for the ease of summoning/returning slain models in that point cost (note that the basic ghouls very much do). The unmounted terry is undercosted due to having the same maw attack. The varghulf coutier is undercosted based on what he does, as are the ghast and haunter courtiers, though you would never actually put them in a list anyways (see below).
Internal imbalance. Some units vary between hugely OP and slightly OP, while others are perfectly fine. But more so, the summoning screws it up. An archregent summons in any courtier for free, and costs 200 points. Since all courtiers are equal when summoning, only the varghulf courtier is summoned. Since that courtier is 160 points it will never be included in a list since for 40 points more you can have it come in from any board edge and have an archregent. So out of four courtier choices, three are theme-only, and the fourth is never included in a list proper unless deliberately toning down. The exception to this if a battalion needs to have a courtier in it.
Mechanical imbalance. FEC shooting revolves around the typical banshee-like scream that deals MWs based off a roll against enemy bravery. It is one thing for a mechanic to be stronger against some armies over others, but the difference is such that shooting can be 400-500% more effective against low-bravery armies than high.
Returning slain models. Those courtiers that were mentioned (varghulf) roll six dice in every hero phase; each 2+ can return a slain ghoul to a unit within 10" while each 5+ can return a slain flayer/horror instead. In practice this amounts to ~250 points returned during an average game, which for exponentially compounding imbalance comes from a model that was summoned in for free.
I think that's everything.
Thank you for detailed response. It’s much appreciated.
As for the FEC...gak, where do we even begin with fixing that?
I say we should pitch in ideas to fix FEC, to bring them into line with the likes of the Gitz, Fyrselayers...you know, those nice balanced middle of the road armies. I’ll start:
Feeding Frenzy: a fight twice in one turn ability that isn’t limited to once per game or costed into a warscroll is always op. So let’s knock this in the head. I don’t know what the alternative should be though; maybe something like...extra damage? Add 1 to the damage of their melee attacks? Something like that?
Delusion/Sub-faction imbalance: fixing feeding frenzy might help address this.
Trait Imbalance: rerolling all hits seems ott. Maybe just 1s?
Mounted Terrorgiest: as it stands, it should probably cost twice as much as it does. Everything considered, you should probably only be able to afford 1 in a 2k game. Although I hate non random mortal wound abilities like that too. Sounds like lots of things need increased in cost though.
Since the battery on my tablet is about to run out I’ll stop there for now.
Feeding Frenzy: a fight twice in one turn ability that isn’t limited to once per game or costed into a warscroll is always op. So let’s knock this in the head. I don’t know what the alternative should be though; maybe something like...extra damage? Add 1 to the damage of their melee attacks? Something like that?
I'd just make it be more like Catechism. 6s mean double hits.This way the ability can have impact, but does not give you double activation in the combat phase. Having it as an extra attack is a bit much if you can proc it each turn. If it were only once then it would probably be better or have it a prayer that procs on a 4+ to reduce the overall impact throughout the game.
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Delusion/Sub-faction imbalance: fixing feeding frenzy might help address this.
Indeed. The problem with synergy traits/artefacts that boost powerful abilities is that they tend to become autotake.
Another take: Make feeding frenzy a 2 CP ability and the trait only reduces it by 1(if we keep Feeding Frenzy as is that is). This means that you are still committing CP into it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/04 00:31:41
As for the FEC...gak, where do we even begin with fixing that?
Honestly, you just don't. It is a really bad situation; never have I seen an army book/codex/battletome that is flawed on a fundamental mechanical level this badly on release. Balancing costs could potentially bring some sanity, but so much of it needs to be changed that the battletome needs a huge rework. That further means it will be extremely difficult to come up with a concise list of changes to fix things that work and, more importantly, -that people will agree on-. If someone can manage that I will be impressed.
I say we should pitch in ideas to fix FEC, to bring them into line with the likes of the Gitz, Fyrselayers...you know, those nice balanced middle of the road armies.
Well... I guess can always try!
Looking to make the fewest number of most simple changes possible to fix things, this is what I would do (in no particular order):
-Rebalance points. This is obviously a category on its own, and is dramatically impacted by what else changes so I'll leave it be for now.*
-Only the general summons a new unit. Change all the relevant command abilities to be "if this model is your general and uses this command ability..." I know I will get rage for this one, but the alternative is massively increasing the cost of all the ghoul kings to compensate for them all being able to summon and I do not think even FEC players want to see that.
-Feeding Frenzy is used when the unit is picked to attack (as in, before they roll) and gives d3 extra attacks; still plenty powerful but not busted and has diminishing returns with other attack-boosting abilities. Alternatively bring back an element of the old feeding frenzy and make it so it can only be used on a unit that wiped out another unit with its melee attacks; inconsistent but also a smaller change to the mechanic.
-Change all of the scream attacks to be binary; if the score beats the enemy bravery it does X mortal wounds regardless of how much it beats that bravery by. That way the 'attacking bravery' mechanic is maintained without the difference being so dramatic. Make the terry scream do d3+1 mortal wounds and the flayer scream do 1. Alternatively just make it a high-rend attack that hits automatically (but still rolls to wound).
-Remove the Varghulf's ability to return slain models. This brings him in line with the usefulness of the Ghast/Haunter courtiers thus resolving the issue of auto-pick Varghulf when summoning. A huge benefit here is that it gives the army a non-monster combat hero that it actually does not have, when mechanically and thematically it should. The other courtiers fight well but are still support models to be protected since they bring things back, while the foot kings are split between a combat and magic support role.
-Drop the terry doing MWs with the maw entirely. Just remove it. The model does not need it, it is not important to the theme, and it solves the mount trait issue along with reducing the point increase needed.
-Make feast day every round, in addition to nerfing feeding frenzy. It is still a big benefit (4-5 CP worth).
-Blisterskin is already brought mostly into line since its bonus CP are not nearly as useful with a balanced frenzy in play, but I would still change the 2" move to an extra 2" on run moves instead; having the extra on base move makes them too reliable at pulling off charges starting 20+ inches away IMO. For Gristlegore make the command trait once per game; a big nerf but one they need badly.
-Returning slain models; the way GW wants to do this is by making the 'target' unit cost more points. Personally I feel that is nonsensical for FEC when it could be baked into the cost of the courtiers. Do one, the other, or some of both, but make it so the units involved are deliberately overcosted to compensate for their resurrection mechanic. Basic ghouls are the example here; they suck compared to other 10-point models, but this is compensated for when they get a bunch of free dudes returning every game.
*Auticus will do it for us anyways
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/04 02:01:53
I think im going to finish the power calculator project. It lets you see how much more powerful by points an army is over another. You plug in the forces, it shows you the handicap score. Or otherwise just how many points you were really operating at.
Can then have your bellcurve listed overall and you will get tweaked point values to bring the two sides down close to each other.
If nothing more it will help two players who WANT to have a fun game construct for that so there is no accidental blow out caused by gross list disparity. It will also show you how much over / under cost something is by GW points.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/04 12:33:28
11-20 is mostly the same as 1-10, with 2 Khorne, 1 Nighthaunt and 1 Sylvaneth up in the top 20 mix. Legion of Azgorh made a solid attempt to crack into the top 20, but came up short, falling in at 21.
Though I don’t take as dim of a view on overall balance as some in this thread* I feel alot is banking on what changes end up in this years GHB. Whether its the obligatory changes to points, new summoning rules or a few quality of life tweaks to some warscrolls, I don’t feel like this GHB can afford to be like previous versions that were mainly points tweaks with a spreading of Allegiance abilities. I think its time for something more comprehensive. Tourney attendance seems like its going through the roof everywhere, and to have such dominance amongst a few factions, that won’t last.
*FEC and Skaven just feel like mistakes, compared to everything else released in this cycle and I have a feeling next GHB will course correct them with some hard swings of the nerfbat. Like I say above, I feel like it has to.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/05/06 04:56:40
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
With Slaanesh being non-cheese I am feeling more and more that FEC and Skaven were anomalies in how busted they are. Everything else has at worst a handful of overpowered elements in the whole book. Granted these can still be game breaking (looking at you, hearthguard zerkers) but that is still miles better than the state of Skaven where 2/3 the book is flat out OP or FEC which is 50 shades of busted.
The big question is if the next GHB was already formatted and off to the printers before feedback of FEC & Skaven came in. If it was then it will be a full year of those two wrecking face after the inevitable nerf of LoN, DoK, Eels and Sacrosanct. If that does happen I'll probably just drop out of the tourney scene entirely until it gets fixed. Even as a Skaven player that would not be much fun.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/06 05:07:54
NinthMusketeer wrote: . If it was then it will be a full year of those two wrecking face after the inevitable nerf of LoN, DoK, Eels and Sacrosanct. .
I think we’ll see the return of community made tourney comp packs, if FEC and Skaven aren’t adressed in some manner. Maybe not wholesale rejection of GHB points, but fan made point adjustments and/or unit/ability restrictions outside of GW’s official rules, for instance.
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
I think GHB was written before the FEC and Skaven release so there probably won't be point changes.
However, and I have a dim memory of this, but GW is willing to do gameplay adjustments in FAQ. They might not do point changes there(it is rare, but happens), but they might reword how certain abilities work and/or limit them. I think we'll inevitably see some changes to FEC and Skaven there.
GHB will most definitely affect DoK as they are that old an army. FEC and Skaven I am doubtful about as I doubt any of the books released this year came before they finished GHB. I would have loved for them to readjust Bloodreavers, but my guess is that is at least a year away if ever.
However with those three in the mix, they blow out any fun one can have barring super competitive play.
I would add Nagash there. Such a boring damn army to fight against. Was at a tourney yesterday where two Nagash armies fought each other and it was just a snorefest through and through. Resurrection as a game mechanic needs to be reevaluated alongside summoning.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/06 11:29:16
If I ruled the world, its a mix of points and warscroll modifications.
However the low hanging fruit can often be handled simply by properly pointing items.
Daughters of Khaine, for example, could benefit from several cleanups such as "wholly within". But making the dirt cheap hag a 100 or 120 point model based solely on how much of a force multiplier it is would do wonders. Witch Elves should have their horde discount looked at as well. They are obscene.
FEC I would limit arch regents to one, no points change. It is the emperor of ghouls. There wouldn't be four hanging out doing tag team action on people. And then I'd examine the monsters that make up the other half of the busted.
Skaven - points changes would largely help bring that army back on keel. They have several units that sit well beyond the bell curve in terms of power per point cost.
Nagash - I'm on the fence with. I hate the level of recycling that they can do because I feel its busted, but on the other hand you can often circumvent it by keeping dudes near their grave sites to block it.
If they made it like gloomspite where you only can recycle the unit ONCE and its only half their numbers, they'd be sane and I think pretty much perfect (despite me hating recycling units).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/06 12:32:19
In general I think GW need to comb over all the rules and FAQ it so that more or less all rules requiring 1 or 6 need a "natural" 1 or 6. There are a few things in the game that can spike if you allow for modified rolls and greater than.
FEC I would limit arch regents to one, no points change. It is the emperor of ghouls. There wouldn't be four hanging out doing tag team action on people. And then I'd examine the monsters that make up the other half of the busted.
I honestly feel GW intended him to be just one per army but didn't have the foresight to actually add that into the warscroll. It's something that is easily FAQ'd if they want to.
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But making the dirt cheap hag a 100 or 120 point model based solely on how much of a force multiplier it is would do wonders.
My estimation is that they will put her at 80-90 compared to many other approaches. I am kinda leaning on they'll go for a soft nerf and move her up to 80 with the possibility of FAQ-ing her ability later on if the nerf proves too little.
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Nagash - I'm on the fence with. I hate the level of recycling that they can do because I feel its busted, but on the other hand you can often circumvent it by keeping dudes near their grave sites to block it.
I just think their Invigorating Aura should not stack on each nearby gravesite. This is horrible for smaller games where all the gravesites are often relatively close. Gravesites should also maybe follow some deployment rule where you can't place gravesites within X inches of each other. I also think the redeployment near a gravesite(6 inches) should also not be summonable exceeding 6 inches of a gravesite.
We are currently finishing an Escalation League at my FLGS and of all the factions people played against most people were annoyed with Nagash even if DoK(1 player) were strong. (For the record that DoK player was not me. I played Blades of Khorne)
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2019/05/06 13:15:23
I honestly feel GW intended him to be just one per army but didn't have the foresight to actually add that into the warscroll. It's something that is easily FAQ'd if they want to.
GW is very very very ANTI restricting models to X per army because it limits sales. They stopped doing that roughly in 2007 or so when the Rick Priestleys, Allesios, etc... left the company.
I know when I read that suggestion online (restricting arch-regents), FEC powerlisters get VERY salty and angry at that idea because its such a powerful optimal choice to spam them.
Our narrative non-powerlister players are very annoyed with Nagash as well. And DoK, and FEC, and Skaven. It is something I have to deal with to keep people playing.
Genestealer Cult book begs to differ with you, since it's literally limiting the characters to 1 per detachment there.
Frankly there's no "good" way to do it, outside of making the Arch-Regent a "Unique" character or adding in weird arbitrary restrictions for one army on him and only him.
I have the same issue with regards to my Idoneth and the Akhelian Kings. I don't feel I should be able to have more than one, but if I want any non-Isharaan character my options are:
-Eidolons of Mathlaan
-Akhelian Kings
-Volturnos(unique)
It's why I'm hoping we'll see an Akhelian Prince riding a shark or eel as a character with a non-"this model as your General" command ability at some point.
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Eldarsif wrote: In general I think GW need to comb over all the rules and FAQ it so that more or less all rules requiring 1 or 6 need a "natural" 1 or 6. There are a few things in the game that can spike if you allow for modified rolls and greater than.
Oh for sure. It's happening with them revamping the books though.
FEC I would limit arch regents to one, no points change. It is the emperor of ghouls. There wouldn't be four hanging out doing tag team action on people. And then I'd examine the monsters that make up the other half of the busted.
I honestly feel GW intended him to be just one per army but didn't have the foresight to actually add that into the warscroll. It's something that is easily FAQ'd if they want to.
I'd highly suggest reading the article on summoning in the May White Dwarf for a look into the mindset they tend to have for some of this stuff. They really do seem to believe that players will self-police.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/05/06 13:36:33
They absolutely require players to self-police. Every last interview with them alludes to "don't play with gits" (quote from Phil Kelly at Games Day 2011).
From what I gather, thats a lot easier done in the UK. In the USA competition is the bread and butter of why a lot of people play, and they subscribe to the Cobra Kai philosophy in gaming: "sweep the leg... no mercy".
Genestealer Cult book begs to differ with you, since it's literally limiting the characters to 1 per detachment there.
I'll have to take your word, I don't get into 40k much as all of my factions are basically jobbers that suck. But is that the exception rather than the rule?
I've not seen them restrict anything (outside of that I suppose) since 7th ed whfb and 4th or 5th ed 40k.
It is the exception, but it's also been in the design framework from the outset for them. Both iterations of the GSC book have had that requirement.
And Alessio is why we had those restrictions removed. He didn't like "keeping players in boxes" and was a cheesemongering powergamer if you ever saw his lists.
They've actually been a bit hands-on with limiting in 40k. First they made it so you could only have one Tau Commander per detachment and then they introduced the Rule of 3 to limit units in general(as well as the Genestealer Cult limit). So unless the AoS team is completely divorced from the people that are working on 40k I am willing to believe they might impose limitations to a single unit or two.
Yes, and Ward's Daemons were a direct result of Cavatore--as Cavatore was one of the senior designers while Ward was new.
Which is why it is mindflippingboggling that people continuously blame Ward for that nonsense. Did people really think that a relatively new designer wasn't being overseen by a senior designer?
One thing all those have in common is that it would not have happend if GW would have allowed play testing in house
Kanluwen wrote: Frankly, words cannot describe how awful Alessio was for WHFB.
He's why Vampires and Skaven were broken for quite some time.
This depends on whom you ask as there is the story that his first draft was printed while he warned that it was broken and need testing to balance it
There is also the story that Kings of War was written because Cavatore complained in a pub that he could do much better if the business guys let him do his job
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/06 16:13:07
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
The rules changes to fix FEC would need to be considerable, but a handful could at least bring them into line with everyone else's cheese. Limiting archregents to 1/army would be nice but honestly not do much. The archregent is the poster boy for FEC balance concerns but is only slightly more OP than the mounted terry. If the regent goes to 1 per people will just drop 200 points elsewhere in the list (or two archregents if they already had three) and bring a mounted terry, which amounts to a very small nerf that does nothing to address the overall balance concerns.
The thing is, summoning and Feeding Frenzy would each make FEC an overpowered, even tier-1, army on their own. To bring them into line with standard cheesing those both need to be addressed in a significant way.
As for Skaven, I do not see how rules changes could help. The balance issue is not their rules, it is that so many of their units are way undercosted. For starters, nothing in Skaven should have a horde discount. At all. The allegiance ability already makes hordes the most points efficient option by a landslide, discounting them further at max size is explicitly making the best option stronger. All the vermin lords, thanquol, furnace, and bell need to go up because they got a 5+ fnp (which is analogous to a 50% wounds increase). I could go on lifting units individually but it is most of the army.
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Future War Cultist wrote: More armies like the Gloomspite please. That was an actual triumph in terms of balance imo.
So much this! I think Gloomspite is probably the best balanced tome they have put out overall, and it extremely well designed. Yeah boingrots/manglers/stone trogs are a bit undercosted but it takes some serious optimization for that to start breaking things and those are a tiny fraction of the options in a battletome with a huge number of units. That they managed to balance out so many units so well is shocking and an extremely good sign. It also made the drop of FEC/Skaven immediately after that much more jarring.
After those two things have gone back to BoC level where a skilled min-maxxer can figure out a cheese build here and there but it would be inaccurate to say the battletome as a whole is imbalanced. Fyreslayers in particular is well done IMO; I see it as analogous to Bonesplittaz where most everything is fine except one entry that is glaringly overpowered. For Bonesplittaz it was kunnin' rukk, for fyreslayers it is hearthguard berzerkers. They are so out of place I am wondering if there was an error where their fnp was supposed to be removed/replaced but was not.
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Kanluwen wrote: Oh man, how could I forget the Tau Commander thing! I play Tau!
I guess it's just become second nature to do 1/Detachment at this point.
1/detachment does not mean one per army though... Or is it a case where theoretically more than one can be taken but in practice that is unreasonable to do?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/05/06 16:36:58
Kanluwen wrote: Oh man, how could I forget the Tau Commander thing! I play Tau!
I guess it's just become second nature to do 1/Detachment at this point.
1/detachment does not mean one per army though... Or is it a case where theoretically more than one can be taken but in practice that is unreasonable to do?
It's more that the Commander was being spammed because he was a more effective Crisis Suit. And given the fact that rule of 3 is usually in play, specific detachments aren't liked or get specific HQs attached to them, etc--it becomes very restrictive to work around even though it's open.
First off, I can’t do quotations at the moment, so I’ll just say thank you for the responses guys.
Second, I’ve got a bit of a problem with the Ahorrant Arch-Regent in general, and not just because of the rules. But here isn’t the place for fluff discussions. Since it’s not a named character I wouldn’t be comfortable with limiting it to just 1, but if it was properly pointed...
Third, if the FEC’s summoning command abilities where all limited to the general only, would that be a good first step in addressing their balance issues?
Fourth, Feeding Frenzy...would returning it to its previous form be acceptable? I like it as a command ability but what it can do is ridiculously over the top. What if it was a hybrid? Use this command ability if an FEC unit destroys an enemy unit in the combat phase...it can immediately pile in an attack again. By putting that ‘break’ on it it stops it being ridiculous, but is it still too powerful?
Finally, how does the zombie dragon king stack up against the Terrorgheist king? If there is no competition, maybe they could be tweaked so that the Terrorgheist is a straight up fighting murder machine whilst the dragon has the better spell and command ability? Keep choice and internal competition going?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/07 14:54:29
Making the summoning general-only would single-handedly fix FEC summoning in regards to new units. FEC players would not like it, but the alternative is to bake in a cost on the summoning models to compensate; +80-160 points on all their kings is probably not what they want to see.
The previous form of feeding frenzy was abysmally terrible, I think your suggestion of making it only usable when a unit wipes out another would be an appropriate hybrid option.
The dragon/mounted dragon is not bad, it is just that the terry/mounted terry is so much better due to the MW maw. IMO just get rid of it. No mortal wounds on the maw is a small, simple change that immediately balances the two options. And I think it is among the most unfun things to play against in the army.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/07 15:50:13
Those would both be good. And both cause some rage.
If you make summoning general-only I'm pretty sure the regent spam would die and they'd just take one (which would fit the fluff and I would be for that)
Removal of mortal wounds from the maw or severely tuning them down would also help, but the rage. Oh the rage. Simply because people bought several to spam for that purpose.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/07 15:52:36
